Sunday, February 28, 2016

This post is mostly a stream of consciousness and mostly an excuse to post a few photos. The bulk of the really good photos will be posted on Saturday, for reasons specified below.

I arrived here on Monday at 8:00 PM, Kenya time, and slept great that night in a queen-sized Hilton Nairobi bed, but jet lag still hit me hard on Tuesday afternoon. My Kenyan parents have extremely comfortable couches.

Nairobi traffic is a vision of Hell. My young nephew-in-law, Samson, got out of the taxi and put his body on the line for the second photo.

Road to Rongai

Nairobi

My father lives in Rongai. He is small-statured, slim, and upright in bearing. I’m slightly taller than he is, but that’s probably due to his age. (I’ve noticed that my American parents are shrinking too.) I’m much taller than my three Kenya sisters because my mother is tall.

Father cares for his wife, Miss Jennifer, with the help of my sisters Lucy Adhiambo and Judith Aluoch. (Another Kenyan sister, Janet Akinyi, lives in Texas.) As a result of several diabetic strokes, Miss Jennifer is an invalid. Having taken care of my great-aunt in her last years, I empathize greatly.

Nairobi has an old crumbling feeling. The people, however, are the opposite. Young, hard-working, friendly and incredibly handsome. And I don’t just say that because I look like them. I’m just as grateful for my American heritage as of the African, but because of the former, I missed out on the smooth, blemish-free skin. And it has only been since reaching my 50s that the battle of the zits has been won. Mostly.

As far as I’ve seen, if there are morbidly obese people here, they don’t come out in public. Most everyone seems slim and graceful. I flew in on the Dutch carrier, KLM Airlines, and noticed that middle-aged Dutch people are mostly in good shape, too, not to mention really tall. O-beasts must be an American thing.

Ochieng house in Rongai

I was introduced to one of my two grand-nephews, Kyle, four months old.

Tomorrow, I get to meet Nigel, two-years-old and one of the two stars of my Facebook page--the other being my American nephew, Jacob, also two. I guess there are three stars now!

My father and I were interviewed yesterday by a KTN reporter named Wilkester Nyabwa—a lovely young lady--for a human interest piece on our reunification. It will run on Saturday, Friday in the USA. I feel a tad bit like…not an imposter…but unworthy of all the hullaballoo made here in Kenya about my visit. I’ve long known that my father was famous on this continent, but felt removed from it. Not anymore. Fame makes a man think things over, to misquote a recently deceased philosopher.

Oh and my father and I exchanged copies of our books. That was really cool!

For the next two days, my family and I will be away from Nairobi and out in our ancestral province. So I will be away from all things Internet, but it will be the opportunity for the best photos! Yes, I’m taking my anti-malarial meds and have my insect repellent handy.

My family members are all sweet, kind and funny. They all speak English, with Kenya having been a British colony, but I don’t yet have an ear for their accents and I did notice that, sometimes, my B-Girl/Valley Girl twang goes by them as well. It’s fun.

Everyone here tells me welcome home. Well, America is my home and always will be. But it’s nice to have two homes…and two wonderful families. Of course, it’s really just one big family.

Please contribute to Juliette’s Projects: A Roof Over My Head, my new novel, this blog, and my Internet--to keep them going and to the COFFEE fund to keep me going!

For daily posts, scroll past this post.UPDATE 2/27/2016: One last funding push. This one is merely to properly tip the Hilton Nairobi staff and Nairobi drivers. The Hilton Nairobi will get five stars from me. Please donate to Paypal rather than GoFundMe.com. Using the latter has been trying at times.

I return home tomorrow, but their will be writing this evening both here and at Da Tech Guy. And more photos than there are at this link.

UPDATE: I have reinserted the GoFundMe widget.Goal: $4100; at $1360 on 2/16/2016.

Original Post on 2/8/2016: So, this morning when I publicized my Go Fund Me campaign on Twitter, I received this:

While I never underestimate the desire to troll, I do think it’s a good idea to itemize the things I hope you will donate for my Kenya trip. After all, why shouldn't you know the purpose of your prospective donations?

Funds

While the trip and the lodging are already paid for by the generous friend, I will have to pay for my meals. My brother has assured me that he can get me from Nairobi to our ancestral village, but I don’t want to leave that to chance, especially since their mother--my father’s present wife--is very ill and they have many medical bills to pay. For my GoFundMe campaign, I’m not looking to get to the limit; it is just a target; $900 was from the earlier campaign from 2013.

And, of course, there’s Wi-Fi—available in my hotel but not free as it is in many American hotels and motels. Many of my readers want me to stay connected every day and I want that as well. And there is also my semi-weekly gig at Da Tech Guy blog, from which I'm not taking a break.

Camera and/or phoneReceived !

The need for a reliable image maker for a trip to abroad—especially to Africa—is self-evident. During my sojourn in homelessness, I sold many items, including a digital camera and an iPhone 3, the last of which was a great piece of cell phone. So now I have only my (free) Coolpad phone which has very little memory and has two cracks in it from being dropped twice—including today. I had an iPad, but it was stolen in 2014.

Clothing and bootsReceived !

Of course, you remember that I lost most of my clothing and shoes last month.

Purpose SoapReceived !Since my late 30s, I have become progressively allergic to most soaps and Purpose is one of the few that doesn’t make me break out in an itchy, alligator-textured rash.

Vitamin C PowderReceived !

I've been taking in more vitamin C into my diet and find that it has helped me tremendously in all physical areas--and keeping me more mentally focused.

Of course, even without any of these thing, I will still go on the trip and do the best I can. And, if you are unable to help materially, you can give an even greater contribution:please pray for these things for me and my travel companion.

Friday, February 12, 2016

Note: My trip to Kenya to see my biological father and meet the rest of my family has been postponed to February 21st and cut down to one week.

My American dad--as opposed to my Kenyan one--works part-time as a host in an Albuquerque hotel. Dad is an excellent cook, just as good at presentation and, best of all, a people person.

One day, a few years ago, he hosted a lunch for a group of Kenyans. After they finished their meal, he came over to their table to do his host thing. They were pleased and he had a fun conversation with them.

“You all are Kenyan, correct?”

“Yes.”

“From the Luo tribe, right?” They looked at him quizzically.

“Yes. How did you know?”

“Because my daughter is Luo.”

Dad says that they all looked at him like, “Ni**a, you ain’t no Luo.”

When he laughed and explained the situation to them, they said he was pretty much a member of the tribe and invited him to sit down and have a drink with them, but, of course, he couldn’t.

When Dad told me this story, I asked him how he knew they were Luo. He said that they all looked just like me.

I just shook my head and, at first, Dad thought I was offended.

“No Dad, it’s not that. Sometimes, when a person asks me about the origin of my name, they’ll also ask if I’ve ever been to Kenya. When I tell them that I haven’t and they ask why not, sometimes I’ll tell them that every Kenyan I’ve ever met looked just like me and I’m afraid that if I go there, they might not let my black ass come back home!”

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

For a long time, it has been apparent that everything which appears in public and enters into our eyes and ears is not necessarily true. But there’s one thing I realized a while back: that even some concepts we take for granted are manufactured.

Here’s one: black leader. For certain there have been actual black leaders of black groups chosen by the particular set of black person they would presume to lead. I’m not talking about that sort of fellow. I’m talking about a Black Leadertm—the kind of guy who sees a parade go by and gets out in front of it, especially when there are microphones and cameras within range—and money to be made. He’s the kind of guy who will eventually have microphone put under him by the likes of Bill O’Reilly or Don Imus or by MSNBC on a weekly basis. He is the go-to guy on all things black.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was the prototype for the Black Leader concept, though not an epitome of it; other black leaders like Harriet Tubman or Marcus Garvey or Malcolm X were leaders organic to black populations/communities. MLK certainly had rhetorical and financial support from outside of his community, but he didn’t start out that way. (There are several books penned by authors who say that he was a planted leader like the type of leader I’m describing, but I’m having trouble finding those titles. So I’ll leave those allegations aside for now.)

It’s obvious that the two nationally most well-known “black leaders” in this country are Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and I contend that both are personas created, totally supported and publicized by the Organized Left. A better label for the two? Community Organizers. You've heard of those before, have you not? Sharpton doesn’t even pretend anymore. And neither does Democrat Party presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

Following the New Hampshire primary where he smoked Hillary Clinton by 22 points, Bernie Sanders made a stop in Harlem to visit with Al Sharpton.

The two men hugged at the entrance of Sylvia’s then spent 20 minutes together talking about affirmative action and police misconduct. The meeting was arranged at Sanders’ request, according to The Washington Post.

The interesting thing—pointed to in this piece--is that many in the “black community” are on to Sharpton’s game and have been for far longer than many in the “white community”who go on about black people “picking better leaders.” Bernie Sanders, who only understands that Sharpton is one of the Organized Left’s designated anointers for the “black community,” is merely signaling. It probably won’t make any difference among black Democrat primary voters anyway—not unless President Obama were on his side in public. (Sanders probably doesn’t want President Obama’s blessing, but, in light of Hillary Clinton having been the Obama Administration’s first Secretary of State, an endorsement of Sanders from the president would be deliciously funny.)

The point is that there no longer any organic black leaders picked by black people and there have been none for decades. No, not Barack Obama, nor even the Black Lives Matter crowd. They are all created and supported by the Organized Left and such have been since MLK was killed. And the fact that media organizations like CNN, MSNBC and Fox News continue to allow these robots to floor-show for ratings should tell you that those organizations aren’t as far apart in ideology as they seem to be—or at least their boards of directors and stock holders aren’t. That’s another false and implanted concept.

Two of my young cousins lamented that we don’t have black leaders like we used to. I said that they were both—born well after Dr. King's death and dedicated fathers of young children--black leaders already. Organic and self-appointed.

Black people, and, more and more, white people have become much like the ancient Israelites who longed, prematurely, for an earthly king and received a very flawed King Saul.

The leader who we all need has always been there and waiting for us to stop looking to flawed human beings for deliverance.

Women can support whomever they damn well please. We don't have to support someone just because they have the same reproductive organs.

Hillary Clinton, Madeline Albright and Gloria Steinem are sharing internal organs? Medical innovation has progressed a lot further than I thought! :::shudder:::

Just kidding, Ashe Schow, and, in spite of the clunky wording, women can, indeed, support whichever candidate they want.

But the assertions of Steinem and Albright rebuking young women for backing Clinton's Democrat party nomination rival Bernie Sanders betray an old, familiar mindset, though neither say it outright. They believe that any member of the “natural born victim” groups, that is women, blacks, and other non-whites, automatically forfeit the group membership(s) to which they were born when they stray from Leftist ideology in word and/or deed--like supporting any man over a Leftist woman.

Using the example that Schow used, Carly Fiorina is no longer a woman, according to Leftist ideology and ideologues, because she is a Republican. Were she a front-runner in the GOP presidential nomination race, the ideologues would be all over her. We saw a parallel phenomenon with Dr. Ben Carson—who, of course, is black--back when he was deemed to be a contender in the GOP race, no pun intended.

This way of thinking is a justifier for action. And, as with many justifications for attack, truth and logic are non-factors. No assertion issuing forth from any approved-Leftist ever has to be true or make sense. Never forget this.

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

The number of Syrian refugees being resettled in the United States continues to climb slowly, but of the 576 admitted since last November’s Paris terrorist attack, only two (0.3 percent) are Christians.

The two Christians are an Orthodox man and a Greek Orthodox man, according to State Department Refugee Processing Center data.

560 are Sunni Muslims. The rest are Sh'ia or unknown. The EU says that 700,000 Syrian Christians have "fled" their homeland. So where are they? My guess: mostly dead or converted.

PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Coahuila–The Mexican Los Zetas cartel used a network of oven facilities to cover-up the systematic mass extermination of innocent people during the 2011-2013 period when the cartel had complete governmental control over most of the Mexican state of Coahuila. From the then-governor of Coahuila, down to the city jails, Los Zetas had complete control of every aspect of governmental process and of the lives of Mexican citizens–including news media. Their atrocities in Coahuila have remained largely unreported and undocumented by any governmental agencies; local, state, federal, or international.

Ever again.

The Breitbart constellation of sites has taken a lot of heat for its choices since the death of Andrew Breitbart, but Breitbart Texas deserves kudos and blessing for putting the lives of its reporters on the line to get this story out.

Question: are things like this happening in the USA and going unreported? If they are, it would not be unprecedented. Remember that our major media organizations are owned by only six corporate entities.

That's why this type of news needs to be passed along by any means necessary.

Saturday, February 6, 2016

ORIGINAL: A couple of years ago, I started the Kenya Project. It was intended to assist Americans in understanding Kenya and, because of my heritage I felt that I was in a unique position to do it. Well now, the Republic of Kenya and I will actually meet in person for the first time.

Before, I felt that it was important for us to see what Kenya really is--especially the Luo tribe--since both President Obama and I stem from that ethnic group. And though his presidency will end in less than a year, I still think that I may be able to bring some truth to the distortions which still circle about regarding the country and its people.

I’m no trained travel writer or historian, to be sure, but I wasn’t a novelist when I set out to write my novel. So take those things into account.

I’ll be staying in the country for two weeks. I’m a bit apprehensive, since this will be the first time I’ve traveled abroad to a Third World country. Sure, I went to Germany and Japan at the behest of the USAF, but the military creates a huge safety net for its non-combatants in other countries and, to be honest, Germany and Japan are incredibly safe—well, at least Germany was safe back in the good old days of the Cold War. Now?

For those who don’t know, this trip and the lodging was a gift from a friend of my blogs whom I will name when he gives me permission. This gift is emblematic of how my life has gone in the past few years: great trials topped off with tremendous blessings.

So the Kenya Project is back on. Back when I started the Project, I had high aims, but they are more modest now. I just want to look, listen, take pictures, write about it, and pass it along to my small reading public. Of course, the most tremendous part if the trip will be to meet many members of my family for the first time, and to see my father, Philip Ochieng, face-to-face for the first time in almost 55 years.

There are some things that I will need to pay for while I’m there: food, transportation, and Internet time. There is Wi-Fi in my hotel, but it isn’t free and when I’m away from there, it’s only available in dedicated cafes, as my brother, Charles Otieno Ochieng, tells me. So please feel free to donate to my PayPal account. I also have a Kenya Wishlist on Amazon with a mere few items on it. The item I need most is a camera. Otherwise I'll have to settle for photos taken with my Coolpad phone.

Monday, February 1, 2016

The State Department is lying when it says it didn’t know until it was too late that Hillary Clinton was improperly using personal emails and a private server to conduct official business — because it never set up an agency email address for her in the first place, the department’s former top watchdog says.

“This was all planned in advance” to skirt rules governing federal records management, said Howard J. Krongard, who served as the agency’s inspector general from 2005 to 2008.

The Harvard-educated lawyer points out that, from Day One, Clinton was never assigned and never used a state.gov email address like previous secretaries.

“That’s a change in the standard. It tells me that this was premeditated. And this eliminates claims by the State Department that they were unaware of her private email server until later,” Krongard said in an exclusive interview. “How else was she supposed to do business without email?”

Krongard points out that there was no permanent IG for State during Clinton's time as SOS. There was an acting IG, however: Harold Geisel.

Senate Judiciary Chariman Chuck Grassley sent a letter to Chair of Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency as well as Secretary of State John Kerry with questions about the State Department’s inspector general during Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.

The State Department IG had an interim head for more than five years, and Grassley want to know whether Clinton was involved in keeping the position temporary. (...)

“Every agency needs a permanent, independent inspector general,” Grassley said in a statement. “The position is too important to assign to a placeholder. An acting inspector general doesn’t have the mandate to lead, and he or she might not be able to withstand pushback from an agency that doesn’t want to cooperate with oversight.”

Grassley has requested a slew of record related to the temporary inspector, Harold Geisel, and why he was in charge for so long. He also pointed out that in the short time since a permanent inspector general was put in place [Steve A. Linick], substantive revelations have come out about a top Hillary aide inappropriately influencing an ambassador nomination.

On July 19, 2004, it was revealed that the U.S. Department of Justice was investigating Berger for unauthorized removal of classified documents in October 2003 from a National Archives reading room prior to testifying before the 9/11 Commission. The documents were five classified copies of a single report commissioned from Richard Clarke covering internal assessments of the Clinton Administration's handling of the unsuccessful 2000 millennium attack plots. An associate of Berger said Berger took one copy in September 2003 and four copies in October 2003. Berger subsequently lied to investigators when questioned about the removal of the documents.

In April 2005, Berger pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material from the National Archives in Washington.

According to the lead prosecutor in the case, Berger only took copies of classified information and no original material was destroyed. Berger was fined $50,000, sentenced to serve two years of probation and 100 hours of community service, and stripped of his security clearance for 3 years.

Actually, Berger absconded with original documents, not that it matters. At any rate, I'm sure that he suffered greatly under his punishment. /s Our betters have long known that a little Rule of Law Theater goes a long way. And even when it doesn't, what are you going to do about it?

Having handled highly classified documents as part of my USAF career, I know that, had I done something similar, I'd have been imprisoned and rightly so. But I was an enlisted woman; mere worker bees who violate the law must properly pay our debts to society. Members of the elite, not so much.

Berger's laughable judicial fate emboldened Hillary Clinton. She will suffer no prosecution for hoarding State Secrets in her house and intentionally exposing them to the world--she might still become POTUS. And it's logic to conclude that she had President Obama's blessing--or the blessing of whomever is controlling the two of them.

But I still think it's important to keep pointing out what kind of Leviathan of corruption and, possibly, betrayal, our government has become.